My season of visitors is coming to an end. The flury started with the arrival of the folks from Loyola Productions, the Jesuit production company based in Los Angeles. They were here for four nights and shot many hours of film capturing all the things Jesuits are involved with here in Dodoma.
Their visit was followed by the visit of Jack Paquette, a lay collaborator who directs the development efforts of the Wisconsin Province (which is due to merge with Detroit and Chicago in the coming years). His enthusiasm and desire to know what we’re all about here was encouraging.
Quickly on their heals was the visit of Martin Schreiber, a priest of the Detroit Province of the Jesuits, accompanied by Peter Otieno, a Jesuit of the Eastern Africa Province doing doctoral studies in philosophy at Loyola University Chicago, where I did my undergraduate degree in Philosophy and English. It was a delight to have them here, and their visit provided Martin and me a great opportunity to catch up. He was among the first people I talked to about coming to TZ to work on the OLQP project. Martin kindly provided six soccer balls purchased by a benefactor – they have been put to very good use (much better than the half-deflated balls which were being used).
The previous posts of “pwani and porini” – the sea and the bush – capture parts of the visit of my friend Tim Kesicki, who is, as it happens, also the provincial superior of the Jesuits in the Chicago and Detroit provinces. It was an absolute delight to have the opportunity to spend so much time with him, which we really hadn’t done since we were working in Detroit together
Days after Tim was named our provincial, I was visiting Ohio (he was the president of our high school in Cleveland, St. Ignatius). I had been in Toledo and was due to return to LA via Cleveland. A horrible blizzard hit northern Ohio. I waited until the storm passed, and then ventured onto the Ohio Turnpike. This road is known for its service, and it was absolutely clear within two hours of the storm passing. The surface roads of Cleveland were a different matter – I got horribly stuck a block away from the Jesuit residence.
Tim kindly climbed through the drifts, shovel in hand, and dug me out (I wasn’t really dressed for the weather). I said to him, “This is a fitting activity, for it captures your next six years as provincial: helping to dig folks out of the messes they get themselves into."
Why do I tell that story? Well, because the trend continued. As I stood helpless by the side, Tim changed three tires. Three! Mind you, it was a fair division of labor because of the exhaustion I had to endure driving the roads. I cannot adequately explain just how bad the roads are. At one point Tim turned to me and said, "We'll be lucky not to lose the suspension." (They even match the condition of dirt roads in Michigan!)
We had two flats on our trip on the road from Arusha to Dodoma – most of which is in very bad shape (this is a relative term -- folks here talk about how happy they are with the improvements on the road!). As you know, one flat is easy to endure. But what to do when you are nowhere near a city and have a second flat? And 7 kilometers from a forest known to have bandits? At sunset? Well, the villagers of Chenene could not have been kinder. One of the villagers spoke a little English, very little. I noticed a wooden cross that another young man was wearing, and in my poor Kiswahili I said to him, “I like your cross.” The others started saying, “He’s a Catholic.” “I’m a priest,” I quickly said – just in case there were any of those bandits among them! As I said they couldn’t have been kinder.
Kinder still were Sossy and Michel from the Jesuit community in Dodoma, who drove the two hours to Chenene with a tire , arriving at about 8:30. They arrived with an armed guard, knowing the reputation of the area. (Incidentally because of the cost, the tires used in these parts are tubes, not radials.)
There were many more less nerve-wracking moments, which I will savor.
Thank you to all my visitors. Karibuni wote tena! You are all welcome again!
